Former world leaders urge governments to back inequality panel

GENEVA: Dozens of ex-world leaders penned an open letter on Wednesday, urging their successors to support the establishment of a new international panel to tackle extreme wealth disparities. Former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin were among the 37 signatories, expressing deep concern about the growing inequality crisis.

The letter, obtained by AFP, noted that while the bottom half of humanity received just one cent of every dollar of growth since 2000, the richest one percent captured 41 cents. The former leaders highlighted that a trillionaire emerged this year, while one in four people faced food insecurity. They emphasized that the gap between the richest and poorest has widened excessively, with no denying it.

The ex-leaders called on their successors to support the creation of a new International Panel on Inequality (IPI), modeled after the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The creation of such a body was recommended in a G20 report by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, who called for urgent action to address a global inequality emergency.

The signatories, including former presidents and prime ministers from various regions, recognized the weight of the challenges facing current leaders. They acknowledged that extreme inequality erodes democratic freedoms and puts economies and democracies under strain. The establishment of the IPI would provide a vital institutional response to these challenges, enabling the tracking of trends, impacts, and drivers, and assessing evidence on policymaking.